Tag Archives: Morris Kline

Affiliation

Friendship is natural to most animals, especially human beings, and that’s why we praise the philanthropist. You will see, if you travel, that all of us are family and even friends.

Something like that is what Aristotle says, in this first of eight readings on friendship. I have trouble imagining where the Philosopher is going to go with his subject; or perhaps I am troubled to imagine what may be in store.

Blurry white disk in a gray sky above black, bird-shaped dots in the highest branches of the foremost of a line of bare trees; several human silouettes below
Crows in a tree
in the morning mist by the Bosphorus
Kireçburnu, Sarıyer, İstanbul
Sunday, March 10, 2024

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Elliptical Affinity

After Descartes gave geometry the power of algebra in 1637, a purely geometrical theorem of Apollonius that is both useful and beautiful was forgotten. This is what I conclude from looking at texts from the seventeenth century on.

In ellipse, colored triangles move to illustrate theorem Continue reading